Homo heidelbergensis
A large-brained, heavily built human spreads across Africa and Europe — and its definition is a mess.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 400 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 50 thousand years
- Era
- Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary
Homo heidelbergensis is the label applied to Middle Pleistocene humans with brains approaching modern size, heavy brow ridges and robust skeletons, found from Ethiopia to Spain to Zambia. It has long served as the presumed common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and ourselves. It is also one of the most contested taxa in palaeoanthropology: many researchers regard it as a wastebasket for anything Middle Pleistocene that is neither erectus nor clearly Neanderthal, and some would abandon the name entirely.